2. UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION
2. UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION Our acceptance or rejection of total depravity as a true Biblical statement of man’s condition by nature will largely determine our attitude towards the next point that came under review at the Synod of Dort. Unconditional election is well set forth in the Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689, which we here quote as a convenient summary. It is also stated in almost identical terms in the Westminster Confession and the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England and all the major confessions.
’Those of mankind who are predestinated unto life,’ says the Baptist Confession, ’God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to His eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, hath chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory, out of His mere free grace and love, without any other thing in the creature as a condition or cause moving Him thereunto.’ [Chapter 3, Article 5]. The doctrine of unconditional election follows naturally from the doctrine of total depravity. If man is, indeed, dead and held captive, and blind etc., then the remedy for all these conditions must lie outside man himself [that is, with God]. We asked in the last chapter: ’Can the dead raise themselves?’ and the answer must inevitably be: ’of course not.’ If, however, some men and women are raised out of their spiritual death -- ’born again’ as John’s Gospel puts it -- and since they are unable to perform this work for themselves, then we must conclude that it was God who raised them. On the other hand, as many men and women are not ’made alive’, we must likewise conclude that that is because God has not raised them. If man is unable to save himself on account of the Fall in Adam being a total fall, and if God alone can save, and if all are not saved, then the conclusion must be that God has not chosen to save all. This is no blind philosophy, but is drawn from, built upon, supported by, and revealed in the Scriptures of God. The subject is one that is as vast as the ocean itself; but we can do no more than quote just a few key verses and scriptures that act as chart and compass across these mighty seas. The story of the Bible is the story of unconditional election. It is strange that those who oppose themselves to this doctrine fail to recognise this. Some believers have difficulty in believing that God could pass by some and choose others, and yet they have no apparent difficulty in believing that God called Abraham out of heathen Ur of the Chaldees and left the others to their heathenism. Why should God choose the nation of Israel as His ’peculiar people’? There is no need to speculate, for Deuteronomy 7.7 gives us the answer: ’The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people; but because the Lord loved you . . .’ Why should God, completely disregarding the family laws of Israel, choose the younger son Jacob, in place of the elder Esau? Again, ’to the law and to the testimony’. Romans 9.11-13: ’. . . that the purpose of God according to election might stand . . . Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated.’
What was the doctrine that Jesus preached in the synagogue at Nazareth but the doctrine of unconditional election? ’And I tell you, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias . . . but unto none of them was Elias sent save unto a woman of Sarepta. . . and many lepers were in Israel in the days of Eliseus . . . and none of them was cleansed saving Naaman the Syrian.’ [Luke 4.25-27]. We know the outcome of our Lord’s preaching of that message: ’They led him to the brow of the hill that they might cast him down headlong.’
Lack of space forbids a full account of God’s sovereign choice of His people; but the truth is clear: ’Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you’ [John l5.6]; ’Has not the potter power over the clay, to make one lump unto honour and another to dishonour’? [Rom 9.21]. ’I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.’ [Rom 9.15]; ’Chosen in Christ from the foundation of the world,’ ’predestinated unto the adoption of children’ [Eph 1.45]; and so on.
We grant that there is a ’kind of election’ that is held by many believers today. Broadly speaking this is based on Romans 8.29: ’For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate, etc.’ The case runs something like this: God foresaw those who were going to accept Christ, and therefore He ’elected’ them to eternal life. Against this view we point out that:
1. God’s foreknowledge is spoken of in connection with a people and not in connection with any action which people performed. The Scripture reads: ’Whom he did foreknow’ etc. Again God speaks thus through Amos: ’You only have I known of all nations of the earth.’ That is to say, irrespective of any action, good or bad, performed by them, God ’knew’ them in the sense that He loved and chose them to be His own. It is thus that He foreknew His elect.
2. It will not do to say that God elected us because He saw something that we would do -- that is, accept His Son. We are not chosen because we perform such a holy work as ’accepting’ Christ, but we are chosen so that we might be able to ’accept’ Him. ’For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.’ [Eph 2.10].
3. Neither will it do to say that God foresaw those who would believe. Acts 13.48 makes this abundantly clear: ’And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.’ Election is not on account of our believing, but our believing is on account of our being elected -- ’ordained to eternal life.’
4. Again, to say that we exercised faith in accepting Christ, and that God foresaw this faith, and, therefore, elected us, only drives us a step further back; for, where did we get the faith to exercise? The Scriptures provide the answer: ’It is the gift of God, not of ourselves.’
Surely, instead of arguing against these things, we should be doing what the Holy Spirit through the apostle Peter commands us to do: ’Give diligence to make your calling and election sure.’